For heart health

Every bit of exercise counts :

People who walk or jog for just a couple of hours each week are at lower risk of heart disease than those who don’t exercise, suggests a new study.

And among people already accustomed to getting the blood flowing, those who go above and beyond on physical activity seem to have the best heart outcomes, said researchers who analysed past data on exercise and heart disease risks.

“Exercise is good, more exercise is better,” said David Swain, an exercise scientist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who was not involved in the new research.

“There’s a continuous improvement in your health and your reducing of heart disease the more physical activity you do,” he told Reuters Health.

Still, Swain cautioned, people who are at risk of heart disease and not used to working out should take it slow, and consult their doctor, when they’re starting out.

Researchers have known that exercise is good for heart health for decades. Pounding the pavement on a regular basis helps reduce blood pressure and improves blood flow in the heart, Swain said.

The authors of the new study, led by Jacob Sattelmair, wanted to test the benefit of exercise on heart disease in relation to new federal guidelines to provide a better picture of just how much activity is necessary for heart protection.

United States guidelines from 2008 recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise (such as brisk walking) each week, or 30 minutes five days per week, as a minimum for health benefit. Twice that, the guidelines say, adds additional benefit.

The researchers collected data from nine past studies that asked participants how frequently they exercised, and for how long each time, and followed them to see who was diagnosed with heart disease over anywhere from a few years to a couple decades.

Those types of studies do have some limitations, the researchers noted. For example, they didn’t all collect information on participants’ diets, so it’s hard to know if the heart benefits were from exercise alone, or due to other health-related factors. Some of the studies took into account factors like weight and whether participants smoked, while others did not.

The findings tended to support the new federal guidelines, said Sattelmair, from the electronic health record company Dossia who led the research while at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Taken together, people who exercised according to the minimum guidelines (equivalent to burning about 550 calories per week through exercise) had a 14 percent lower risk of heart disease than those who didn’t exercise at all.

For those who met the higher guideline standard (about 1100 calories per week), that improved to a 20 percent lower risk, the researchers reported in Circulation.

People who only got half as much exercise as the minimum guidelines also had some heart protection compared to non-exercisers, Sattelmair said. And those who worked out for longer than guidelines recommend continued to reduce their heart risks - but the added benefit levelled off with high amounts of activity.

About one in eight adult Americans suffers from heart disease, the leading killer worldwide.

The study didn’t look at the difference between moderate and more vigorous exercise, but researchers said that people who work out intensely get the same or greater benefit from less time than “moderate” exercisers. While the findings show that more is generally better, “If you’re doing nothing, you don’t have to start walking an hour a day to achieve benefit,” Sattelmair said.

Jumping off the couch into a running routine might also be worrisome for people who are at risk for heart disease, Swain added, and they should ease into exercise and discuss it with their doctor. Being overweight and having diabetes or high cholesterol adds to heart risks. “If you’re totally sedentary...as little as 10 to 15 minutes of brisk walking a day was associated with a reduction in risk of heart disease,” Sattelmair told Reuters Health. “Everyone can benefit from movement and physical activity and exercise.” - Reuters

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General workout tips

Be sure any exercise is paced and balanced with rest. Avoid isometric exercises such as push-ups and sit-ups. Isometric exercises involve straining muscles against other muscles or an immovable object.

Don’t exercise outdoors when it is too cold, hot, or humid. High humidity may cause you to tire more quickly; extreme temperatures can interfere with circulation, make breathing difficult, and cause chest pain. Better choices are indoor activities such as mall walking. Make sure you stay hydrated.

It is important to drink water even before you feel thirsty, especially on hot days. But, be careful not to drink too much water. Follow your doctor’s guidelines about how much fluid you can have in a day.

Extremely hot and cold showers or sauna baths should be avoided after exercise.

These extreme temperatures increase the workload on the heart.Steer clear of exercise in hilly areas. If you must walk in steep areas, make sure you slowdown when going uphill to avoid working too hard. Monitor your heart rate closely.

If your exercise program has been interrupted for a few days (for example, due to illness, vacation, or bad weather), make sure you ease back into the routine. Start with a reduced level of activity and gradually increase it until you are back where you started.

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Volunteering to help others could lead to better health

People who volunteer may live longer than those who don’t, as long as their reasons for volunteering are to help others rather than themselves, suggests new research published recently.

This was the first time research has shown volunteers’ motives can have a significant impact on life span. Volunteers lived longer than people who didn’t volunteer if they reported altruistic values or a desire for social connections as the main reasons for wanting to volunteer, according to the study, published in the APA journal Health Psychology. People who said they volunteered for their own personal satisfaction had the same mortality rate four years later as people who did not volunteer at all, according to the study.

“This could mean that people who volunteer with other people as their main motivation may be buffered from potential stressors associated with volunteering, such as time constraints and lack of pay,” said the study’s lead author, Sara Konrath. Researchers examined data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which has followed a random sample of 10,317 high school students from their graduation in 1957 until the present. The sample is 51.6 percent female, with an average age of 69.16 years in 2008.

In 2004, respondents reported whether they had volunteered within the past 10 years and how regularly. They reported their reasons for volunteering (or the reasons they would volunteer, for those who had not done so) by answering 10 questions.

Some motives were more oriented toward others (e.g., “I feel it is important to help others,” or “Volunteering is an important activity to the people I know best”) and some that were more self-oriented (e.g., “Volunteering is a good escape from my own troubles,” or “Volunteering makes me feel better about myself”).

The researchers also considered the respondents’ physical health, socio-economic status, marital status, health risk factors (i.e., smoking, body mass index and alcohol use), mental health and social support. Much of this information was collected in 1992, 12 years before the respondents were asked about their volunteering experience.

The researchers then determined how many of the respondents were still alive in 2008.

Overall, 4.3 percent of 2,384 non-volunteers were deceased four years later, which was similar to the proportion of deceased volunteers who reported more self-oriented motives for volunteering (4 percent).

However, only 1.6 percent of those volunteers whose motivations were more focused on others were dead four years later. This effect remained significant even when controlling for all the variables.

Additionally, respondents who listed social connection or altruistic values as their predominant motive were more likely to be alive compared with non-volunteers.

“It is reasonable for people to volunteer in part because of benefits to the self; however, our research implies that, ironically, should these benefits to the self become the main motive for volunteering, they may not see those benefits,” said the paper’s co-author, Andrea Fuhrel-Forbis, MA.

- APA

Brain waves control the impact of noise on sleep

During sleep, our perception of the environment decreases. However the extent to which the human brain responds to surrounding noises during sleep remains unclear. In a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers used brain imaging to study responses to sounds during sleep. They show that brain activity in the face of noise is controlled by specific brain waves during sleep. In particular, waves called sleep ‘spindles’ prevent the transmission of sounds to auditory brain regions. Conversely, when sounds are associated with brain waves called ‘K-complexes’, activation of auditory areas is larger. Our perception of the environment is therefore not continuously reduced during sleep, but rather varies throughout sleep under the influence of particular brain waves.

In this study, the research team shows that brain activity induced by sounds during sleep closely depends on brain waves that constitute our sleep. By using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) combined with electroencephalography (EEG), researchers have evidenced that auditory brain regions remain active in response to sounds during sleep [see image, left panels], except when sounds occur during brain waves called sleep ‘spindles’. The study indeed shows that spindles prevent the transmission of sounds to the auditory cortex [see image, right panels].

Conversely, sounds can induce the production during sleep of brain waves called ‘K-complexes’. The results brought by this new study demonstrate that production of K-complexes by sounds is associated with a larger activation of auditory brain areas.

While spindles prevent the transmission of sounds, K-complexes reflect a more important transmission of sounds to the sleeping brain. The effects of noise on sleep are therefore controlled by specific brain waves. In particular, the human brain is isolated from the environment during sleep spindles, which might allow essential sleep functions to operate such as the consolidation of memory for previously acquired information. These brain waves thus play a crucial role in sleep quality and stability in the face of noise. (Sources: Liège University, AlphaGalileo Foundation)

No link found between menopause and increased risk of fatal heart attack

Researchers say data show aging alone, not hormonal impact of menopause, explains increasing number of deaths as women age. Contradicting the long-held medical belief that the risk of cardiovascular death for women spikes sharply after menopause, new research from Johns Hopkins suggests instead that heart disease mortality rates in women progress at a constant rate as they age.

The findings, published in BMJ, the British medical journal, could have implications for how heart health is assessed in pre-menopausal women, who were previously believed to be at negligible risk of death from heart attack. “Our data show there is no big shift toward higher fatal heart attack rates after menopause,” says Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s leader. “What we believe is going on is that the cells of the heart and arteries are aging like every other tissue in the body, and that is why we see more and more heart attacks every year as women age. Aging itself is an adequate explanation and the arrival of menopause with its altered hormonal impact does not seem to play a role.” Menopause clearly plays a role in other diseases for women, the researchers found. For example, Vaidya says, the rate of breast cancer mortality decelerates at menopause, probably because of hormonal changes.

To reach its conclusions, Vaidya’s team analyzed mortality statistics for people born in England, Wales and the United States between 1916 and 1945. They followed similar groups of people as they aged and found that, at the time of menopause in each cohort, there were no increases in female mortality rates above and beyond the steady curve that is expected from aging, he says. Vaidya says his team also found that the number of women who die each year from heart disease increases exponentially at roughly 8 percent per year. The statistical death rate curve stays steady throughout life, he says, increasing risk annually in the same way compound interest increases a bank account balance over time. Absolute mortality - the actual number of deaths - increases at all ages with no abrupt change at menopause.

Men

Also surprising, Vaidya says, is what he and his team learned about men. It has long been known that men are at risk of heart disease mortality from a much earlier age than women. Vaidya says he found that the mortality curve for men under the age of 45 actually increases by 30 percent a year, only to slow after that age to roughly 5 percent a year - similar to the rate throughout the lifetime in women.

The data suggest that something biological may be happening to younger men that is harming their hearts. “Instead of looking at menopause, what we should be looking at is what is happening biologically to men over time,” Vaidya says. “We don’t have an answer. Good research always creates more questions.” Rapid progress in the understanding the effects of aging on cells - most notably the concept of shrinking telomere length - could account for some of the gender differences, Vaidya suggests.

Telomeres are found at the end of each chromosome in the body and act as shields that protect important genes from assault. Telomeres shrink every time they are copied, which occurs every time cells divide.

As telomeres get shorter, there is the chance that the genes at the end of the chromosome will get damaged, and if they are, they will not recover, leading to the damaging effects of aging. such may be the case in heart disease mortality.

Previous studies have shown that telomere lengths are similar in male and female babies, but become significantly shorter in young adult men as compared to young adult women, which could account for the finding that men have increased risk of cardiovascular mortality at younger ages. At later ages, telomeres shorten at similar rates in men and women, which could account for their similar heart disease mortality rate increases during older ages.

- MNT

Chocolate and cocoa polyphenols vindicated in the war against heart disease

Researchers from the University of Cambridge in Englandhave published evidence to demonstrate the consumption of chocolate is associated with improved heart and vascular health.

Writing in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), Dr. Oscar Franco and his team determined several factors including diet,exercise, body weight control and lifestyle changes could help reduce the risk of heart disease, a condition expected to claim the lives of nearly 24 million people worldwide by the year 2030. The study authors found that the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of cocoa from chocolate consumption could reduce heart disease risk by one-third and could also reduce the risk of sudden death from a heart attack and stroke incidence.

The study included an analysis of seven detailed research bodies that included more than 114,000 participants. All studies independently pointed to the conclusion that different levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of cardio-metabolic disorders. Researchers found that the flavonoids passed to chocolate from the cocoa bean have a positive impact on health and were found to regulate insulin sensitivity and maintain blood pressure in the normal range.

Researchers ranked chocolate consumption among participants in the seven studies from highest to lowest to determine the effect of the cocoa flavanols on human health risk factors. Five of the seven studies showed that eating the highest amount of chocolate significantly reduced the number of cardiac events. In particular they found those who ate the most chocolate had a 37% lower risk of having a cardiovascular incident compared to those who ate the least.

When assessing other risk factors, the study authors found that the highest chocolate consumers had a 29% lower incidence of stroke compared to the lowest chocolate eaters. Interestingly the researchers found that high levels of chocolate consumption specifically lowered the risk of a cardiac or stroke event but did not impact heart failure, another very serious form of heart disease and death. The studies examined did not differentiate between milk and dark chocolate, and included chocolate desserts, biscuits, chocolate bars and drinks. Prior research has indicated maximum benefit from eating dark, bitter chocolate with a high cocoa content.

Caution

The authors did provide a word of caution regarding excess consumption of chocolate particularly because commercially available chocolate is very caloric and eating too much of it could in itself lead to weight gain, risk of diabetes and heart disease. They concluded, “Based on observational evidence, levels of chocolate consumption seem to be associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of cardio-metabolic disorders.”

Individuals looking to take advantage of the health benefits of chocolate may want to use a cocoa bean extract supplement (25 to 50 mg per day) to reap the cardiovascular and stroke risk reduction benefits.

- NaturalNews